This study examines the mental health implications of the meaning of work, work identity, and adjustment to retirement of career-committed women, that is, women who have spent most or all of their adult life in the full-time labor force. Based upon samples of retiring and retired workers. (both men and women), in the retail merchandising industry, one of the few industries in which women of this age cohort were able to advance to higher levels of responsibility, this study will compare these women to men in parallel positions, and to women who have had a more peripheral attachment, as part-time or short term workers. By means of a time-I-Time II longitudinal research design, these important issues will be explored, for workers approaching their retirement date and again one year later, once they have had some time to adjust to their new retirement status.